Revolving-door justice

In his column commenting on this story (“Slain student’s parents hope that suing university will bring needed change,” Feb. 16), Shawn Vestal writes, “… her parents are doing all they can to make sure their daughter – and the litany of institutional failures that preceded her murder – is not forgotten. Jill McCluskey and her husband, Matt, hope that Lauren’s case becomes a spur to improve the way colleges and universities nationwide respond to dating violence and sexual harassment.”

Well, he got the “institutional failures” part right, but the wrong institution.

It is not the job of a university, or of a hospital, movie theater, restaurant, or any other institution or establishment open to the public, to protect its students, patients, or customers from street thugs. That is the job of the so-called “criminal justice system” — the police, prosecutors, courts, and most importantly, the legislators who write the laws.

Lauren McCluskey’s murderer, Melvin Rowland, was a convicted sex offender returned to prison twice for parole violations.

Nationally, 77% of inmates released from state prisons are arrested for new crimes within 5 years. A comparable percentage of the crimes committed daily on the streets of America’s cities are committed by persons with 2, 5, even 10 or more prior felony convictions.

Like Rowland, none of these thugs should have been loose on the streets in the first place. The real blame for Lauren’s death rests with the politicians and bureaucrats who have created and operate a revolving-door justice system that fails utterly to keep proven criminals off the streets.

Gary E. Morton

Spokane